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Visual Models to Use in the Classroom for Teaching Immunology Concepts
Author(s) -
Williams Ann
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.30.1_supplement.666.5
Subject(s) - immunology , mathematics education , antigen , general partnership , medicine , computer science , psychology , political science , law
Teaching tools including visual models that utilize active learning techniques have been used successfully in my classroom to teach Immunology concepts and increase student learning. I have created three teaching modules: The Deadly Hershey's Kiss, the Construction paper activity, and INFECTION, an Immunology Board Game that have been used routinely and successfully in upper division Immunology and Microbiology for Allied Health courses. These modules utilize the concept of visualizing the processes of primary and secondary infections and specificity of T & B cell receptors with their corresponding antigen. INFECTION is useful in the college classroom or lab for modeling concepts such as primary and secondary response, vaccinations, specificity, autoimmunity, and HIV. INFECTION was developed and presented this tool to middle and high school teachers as part of a Science Math Masters grant funded by the Florida Department of Education and administered by University of Tampa faculty in partnership with K‐12 educators and administrators in Florida. It was developed for both the middle and high school teachers and classroom and at the undergraduate level. The INFECTION game utilizes a lymph node as the game board, case study scenarios, different colored balls as B cells, T cells, and antigens, clothespins as antibodies, a foam “pacman” ball as a macrophage, and a roll of the die to move you to the next Immune step to clear the infection. As you wait for each individual immune step, microbes are doubling (represented by pinto beans) and the game is a race between microbes doubling and antibody production. All three teaching modules are used in different ways in the classroom and lab to visualize and model several important immune concepts including vaccinations, B cell, T cell, and antigen specific interactions, HIV, autoimmunity, and would be appropriate to use in courses where Immunology concepts are discussed including Microbiology, Immunology, Introductory Biology, and Non‐majors Biology. Support or Funding Information Florida Department of Education